Another Day of Existing, Another Day of Making It
by lord yuuri
Summary: Twenty-four years old. What does it mean? – in which yuuri thinks he's having an existential crisis on his birthday. happy (belated) birthday, yuuri!


November 29th, 2016.

Today is when Yuuri Katsuki becomes twenty-four years old. Bring out the cake, bring out the katsudon.

Wait, is mixing cake and katsudon together a good idea? Who knows. Maybe it is. Sounds like a wild thing to try, but being in his early twenties means that Yuuri should be a wild boy. Partying. Drinking. Smoking. Lacking common sense. Living his life to the fullest until he turns thirty-two and realizes how much of his life he has wasted and thus decides to settle down with Viktor, buy cute puppy things for Makkachin, and go to bed at eleven at night instead of two in the morning.

But he's doing none of that. He's what you deem "normal", a word foreign to so many. And he's not really sure how to _feel_ about that (if he's supposed to be feeling anything about it at all). It's like, is he doing something wrong? Is he doing something right? Is Yuuri Katsuki not living the life he's supposed to be living? What life is he supposed to be living?

And as Yuuri thinks and mulls over those questions, receiving no answers whatsoever, he realizes that whatever life he's living is going by _fast_. So quick that it all goes by in a blur, and he's having trouble keeping up. His hand reaches for it but he can't grab it. He's left behind in the suffocating dust, unable to see and breathe and do anything.

No control. No sense of direction. No anything. It all boils down to having nothing and understanding nothing and it scares Yuuri.

Twenty-four years old. What does it mean? What meaning should it have? Why does he feel this way now? Why _not_ feel this way now?

Yuuri locks himself in his room. His blankets form a cocoon around him, keeping him shielded from the world until he was ready to break free and perhaps be a pretty butterfly that knows what the hell it's doing. There was a consistent and constant knocking on the door. Yuuri didn't even bother to tell Viktor to go away – he knew he wouldn't. Viktor Nikiforov doesn't give up that easily. Never has, never will, and Yuuri Katsuki fully understands that. So the knocks and the "Yuuri, please" and the Makkachin whining becomes a guilt symphony, the constant background music of his life, and Yuuri snuggles deeper into the darkness of the sheets, singing an off-tune "Happy Birthday" to himself. And his voice cracks throughout the song because _of course it doe_ s and the knocks become more frantic as the soft tears grow into loud sobs.

And no, Yuuri Katsuki cannot fully comprehend why he feels this way on such a happy and joyous day and why he's not celebrating with Viktor like he should be doing, dressing up a bit and hanging out and eating katsudon. He doesn't understand why he doesn't want to celebrate but instead dig a hole and remain in there for, preferably, eternity. He doesn't know, he doesn't know, and maybe he's having some existential crisis or something along those lines and he cannot deal with that, he can't, he can't, he _can't_ –

The door unlocks. Yuuri doesn't even question it. He just hides his face as Viktor closes the door behind him and rushes to the raven-haired boy, and Yuuri soon finds himself underneath the blankets with this silver-haired Russian man that just so happens to be his boyfriend, and he allows this man to stroke his hair and murmur a lullaby of reassurance.

Yuuri does not answer when Viktor asks to explain to him what's wrong because Yuuri isn't sure how to place this flood of feelings into words. The wild strain of headache-inducing thoughts roam wild, and they cannot stand still long enough to become something coherent. He can't explain how he feels – he just feels it, feels it clearly enough to know that it's bad (and Yuuri weirdly chuckles to himself, because the word _bad_ is such a fucking understatement).

So he asks Viktor to not mention his birthday. No "Happy Birthday, Yuuri!", no cake, no katsudon, no acknowledgement of this particular day until he can calm himself and find himself. Viktor agrees because _of course he does_ , he knows not to push Yuuri, and he just holds Yuuri as tight as he can. And Yuuri allows this, allows this slow introduction back to reality because Viktor makes it easier to face it (he always has).

Maybe next year he'll eat cake and katsudon together. Maybe. Who knows?

* * *

 **yuuri katsuki is my spirit animal.**

 **sorry for the late b-day story but life got in the way. stupid life.**

 **(and sorry for the fact that this is not even a happy b-day story and i ended it so blandly my sincerest apologies)**


End file.
